The One in My Heart (10 page)

Damaris stood up reluctantly. “We should tango here tonight and show everybody a thing or two.”

“I don’t think so. See you later.”

Damaris made a sound through her nose. “I wouldn’t feel so secure about your place if I were you,” she said to me. “He went out with my friend a few times last summer and then dumped her like a bag of cement.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I answered with a smile. “I’ll be sure to dump him first.”

“You really are the best,” Bennett whispered to me as we sat down in the wake of Damaris’s hair-tossing departure.

“Next time, if you must reject a woman, try some subtle.”

“I already tried subtle. The patient is forty-five percent inebriated and not responding to subtle.”

Damaris looked back just then. Bennett wasted no time in pulling me toward him and kissing me on my cheek. “Now, why don’t
you
get wasted and come on to me?”

I ignored that question. “Your mom has the flu. She called Mrs. Davenport earlier to say she wouldn’t be coming.”

This sobered him. “At least I don’t have to wonder about that anymore.”

We sat silently for a while; then I felt him touch the shell of my ear. The sensation of it all but skewered me. “What happened to waiting for me to get wasted first?”

“That’s only one scenario.”

“What’s this scenario, then?”

“I’m just turned on by you.”

His words were almost a greater peril than his touches. I nudged a pumpkin gnocchi around on my plate. “You’re planning to use me to distract yourself from your disappointment. I don’t do consolation sex.”

I also didn’t want to experience any more of his vulnerability. That sigh on my shoulder just about killed me.

“It’s not consolation sex, just the straightforward, nasty sort,” he whispered in my ear, sending sizzles of electricity along my nerve endings.

He was clearly angling for sex and sex alone, viewing me as a stressed-out society matron might eye her bottle of Xanax. Why, then, did I so desperately want to say yes?

I put on my sternest voice. “If you want to get laid, hook up with somebody on Tinder, or order an escort off craigslist.”

“I’m morally opposed to paying for sex, and I don’t want to deal with any more strangers tonight.” He reached for a tomato tarte Tatin. “Guess I’ll eat myself into a stupor then. Where’s a gallon of cookie-dough ice cream when a man needs it?”

I got up and returned with an assortment of desserts. “Here, sex on a plate.”

He bit into something triple-tiered, but his eyes were on me, his hunger unmistakable.

I pushed a slice of almond dacquoise along the edge of the plate, too flustered to eat. “Something doesn’t compute about your situation,” I said, so that I wouldn’t stare back at him with the same intensity of lust. “Kids have screaming fights with their parents all the time and everybody says all kinds of mean things. And in the vast, vast, vast majority of the cases, by next Thanksgiving everybody is sitting down to dinner again. I don’t get why your estrangement with your parents should have lasted so long. Did you and Ms. Cougar break up just now?”

“No, when I was twenty-three.”

“Who holds a grudge for another decade?”

“I did mount a couple of real takeover attempts of the family holdings in my twenties.”

I stopped pushing around the almond dacquoise. “So you were a raging asshole.”

“That, I believe, is the technical term.”

This changed things. “Are you sure your dad will forgive you?”

He dug a spoon into a thimble-size cup of chocolate crémeux. “No, I’m not sure at all. Which is why I need you. And you…you have no sympathy for a man trapped between his pride and his past asshole-ism.”

He offered me the spoonful of crémeux, which was rich and bittersweet. “I have sympathy, just not enough to take off my clothes.”

“You can keep your clothes on,” he murmured.

The implication of his words…It was a wonder that the electricity sizzling along my nerves didn’t short-circuit all the lights in the ballroom.

Applause erupted, startling me: The bride and groom were leaving. Bennett and I stood up and joined in the clapping.

“We should probably go too, if your purpose here is done,” I said, once the newlyweds had exited.

“Are you going to jump into a taxi and head straight home?”

“Yes.”

“And what do I do with my sad and lonely self?”

“Get drunk, eat ice cream, and don’t operate on anyone.”

He put an arm around me. “You are heartless. Why do I want you so much as my fake girlfriend?”

Why don’t you want me as your
real
girlfriend, you jackass?
“Because I seem—seem, mind you—to inhabit that sweet zone of obtainability: not so easy as to be worthless, and not so difficult that you’d give up all hope. Pretty basic evolutionary psychology.”

He gazed at me. “You really know how to put a man in his Cro-Magnon place, Eva.”

Pater had always insisted that nicknames were only for spouses and immediate family. He never referred to me in public except as Evangeline—and neither did Zelda, because he had been so adamant.

To hear Bennett call me Eva was a shock to the system, all the more so because I loved it.

Before I could reply, mournful, sensuous notes wafted across the ballroom.

A tango.

Damaris strode to the middle of the dance floor, struck a pose to a smattering of whistles and applause, and hooked her finger at Bennett.

He shook his head no.

“Come on,” she wheedled.

He shook his head again.

“Pretty please,” she pleaded.

Bennett hesitated. He turned to me, a gleam of calculation in his eyes. “Did you like
Dirty Dancing
? Did that movie turn you on?”

“Why do you want to know?” I asked cautiously.

“That’s a yes then.”

He shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it over the back of a chair. Then he pulled off his tie and extracted his cuff links. The music writhed and trembled. He approached Damaris slowly, almost casually, rolling up his sleeves as he did so. My heart stuttered at the sight of those beautiful forearms. The crowd was no less appreciative, the women cheering loudly.

All of a sudden he looped his arm about Damaris’s waist and yanked her to him.

Catcalls erupted.

He drew a hand up her bare arm, over her shoulder, and cupped her cheek.

“
Mamma mia!
” said someone behind me.

Bennett flung Damaris away. She spun outward. He caught her by the fingertips. They stayed like that a moment, precariously balanced. She spun back into his arms. They were now pressed together from shoulder to groin, legs completely tangled.

He flicked one spaghetti strap off her shoulder. I heard myself gasp. He released her into a sweeping dip, then pulled her up so that their faces nearly touched.

The dance began in earnest. I’d seen tango, both as performance art onstage and in the clubs of Buenos Aires. But I’d never experienced another tango in which the man dominated the pairing quite so overwhelmingly.

The feral agility with which he moved had me slack-jawed. His turns and steps were as precise as an assassin’s aim. His posture was gorgeous. And his understanding of the soul of the tango—the courtship in all its danger and complexity—mesmerized me.

Damaris was in thrall to his will, draped about him like a scarf. He was all cool provocation and heartless—or so I hoped—promises.

“This is better than porn,” someone else said.

I was too flabbergasted to speak.

They sank into a deep lunge. While she remained in the lunge, he rose and walked away. She ran after him and lobbed her arms around his shoulders. He turned, lifted her, and dropped her into a reverse dip. Then he pushed her away, hard. They stared at each other. The music rose to a crescendo. She launched herself at him; he caught and held her, then slowly slid her down against his person, until she stood with one foot on the ground and the other hooked around his thigh.

The barest hint of a smile softened his mouth—power, control, and rampant masculinity in a bespoke package. The music stopped. He let go of Damaris, who immediately wrapped him in a hug. Something crooked and thorny poked into my heart—even more so when the guests burst into wild applause.

Then he was back at my side, reaching for his jacket. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 6

AS SOON AS THE ELEVATOR
door closed, I yanked him to me. We kissed, devouring each other. The elevator could have crashed and I wouldn’t have cared. Lust, need, and a crazy ache simmered inside me. I couldn’t get close enough to him.

I couldn’t get enough
of
him.

My fingers were in his hair. One of his hands was at the small of my back; the other cupped my bottom, molding our bodies together. Through his trousers his arousal pressed into me—a lot of arousal, that. I kissed him with even greater abandon.

Someone cleared her throat. We stilled: Without being aware of it, we’d reached the first floor and the door had opened on us.

Almost casually, Bennett kissed me at the corner of my lip, and then on the lobe of my ear, whispering, “I’ve never been caught in an elevator before, have you?”

I didn’t make out in public, period. What in the world had come over me?

We pulled apart as if we’d engaged in nothing more erotic than a hug. Bennett took my hand. The next moment he turned stock-still, staring at the handsome middle-aged couple waiting to get in. They likewise gawked, in a way I wouldn’t have expected of such a dignified pair.

The family resemblance struck me.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. You’re late—the newlyweds have already left,” said Bennett, with a nonchalance that gave no hint of how much he had schemed for this moment. He placed an arm around me. “Have you met Evangeline?”

Their gaze was more wary than curious.

“Hi, I’m Evangeline Canterbury. I believe you know my former stepmother, Zelda.” I thrust my hand out. “It’s great to meet you.”

Mrs. Somerset visibly relaxed—so Bennett was right in wanting a known entity for a fake girlfriend. “Yes, of course,” she said, shaking my hand. “Zelda never has enough good things to say about you. I’m delighted to meet you at last.”

Mr. Somerset was less effusive but completely civil. “A pleasure.”

Mrs. Somerset touched her son on his sleeve. “How’s the fellowship, Bennett?”

“Inhumane, but I’m determined to persevere. How’s work for you?”

“Good. Really good.”

“I hear Custard is still alive. How is she?”

“Pretty well, actually. She had to find new places to nap once TVs became wall-mounted, but otherwise she hasn’t changed much.”

“Good to hear,” said Bennett smoothly. “And please don’t let us keep you. Enjoy the reception.”

He tugged on my hand.

“It’s really nice to meet you,” I said brightly. “Have fun.”

“Bye,” said Mrs. Somerset, her gaze not leaving her son.

“Are the two of you going out?” asked Mr. Somerset, who hadn’t said a word since our handshake.

Bennett looked at me.

I smiled at his parents. “We’re playing it by ear.”

“Just remember,” said Bennett. “My biological clock is ticking, and I really need to settle down soon.”

I laughed despite my nerves. We walked out of the hotel hand in hand.

I BROUGHT BENNETT TO A
quiet café a few blocks away that served rib-sticking Russian fare. He sat down and dropped his forehead into his palm, his frustration palpable.

He had been so cool and unaffected in front of his parents—the contrast was stark. I’d known that this was important for him: He’d moved across the width of a continent to be in the same city as his parents. But now I understood in my gut just how much he wanted this.

How much he wanted to be home again.

“Thanks for not deserting me,” he said after some time, two fingers pressed against the space between his brows.

I didn’t need him to elaborate to know that he was thinking back on the exchange, trying to process the fact that his father didn’t say a single word to him. Even when Mr. Somerset asked whether we were together, he’d been looking at me, and not his son.

I should probably comment on Mr. Somerset’s aloofness. But I didn’t know him; I only knew Bennett.

“You were too slick,” I said. “There was no way for them to tell whether you still gave a shit about them. If I were the father you’d tried to bring down multiple times, I wouldn’t have relaxed my guard.”

He was silent.

“And don’t forget, you’ve been in town for more than six months without making any attempts to contact them. As far as they know, you’ve written them off completely. I’d take it as an encouraging sign that they both came when they heard you were at the reception.”

He nodded slowly.

I let him be, now that I’d said my piece. We both took out our phones. Multiple text messages were waiting for me, most of them from Zelda, whose concert had just ended.

People keep texting me about seeing you and Bennett together.

What’s this saucy tango involving your date and Damaris Vandermeer?